Video 5:44
Griggs still hopes to save Eaton

Alyssa Betts
Sun 27 Oct 2013, 8:22 PM AEDT

The Member for Solomon Natasha Griggs still aims to keep Eaton as a suburb even though houses are now on the move.

Transcript

ALYSSA BETTS, PRESENTER: Darwin and Palmerston's Federal Parliament representative believes it's not too late to buy back the houses and stop the dismantling of Eaton. Her party is now in power, so what about her promise to 'save the suburb'? I spoke with the Member for Solomon, Natasha Griggs, earlier.

Natasha Griggs, welcome to the program.

NATASHA GRIGGS, MEMBER FOR SOLOMON: Thank you, thank you for having me on.

ALYSSA BETTS: Now, saving Eaton or the RAAF base suburb could be fairly described as one of your major commitments, you campaigned very hard on it in 2010 and you repeated that commitment in this year's election campaign, so what's the latest, what's happening?

NATASHA GRIGGS: Well what I've done Alyssa is I've got the Defence Minister and also the Assistant Defence Minister, I've got commitments from both of them they'll be here within the next little while and we'll have all the stakeholders around the table. This issue will be resolved once and for all. The department is preparing a full brief for the new ministers and once we have that information we'll have some more detail information that will help us make some very firm decisions and that briefing will occur before they both come to the Territory.

ALYSSA BETTS: Do you have an idea about their timeline? I think before the election you mentioned they would be here within the first month, that's gone now so is that a bad sign?

NATASHA GRIGGS: Oh no, not at all. It's just that we did take a little while for the ministries to be, to be sorted and now that's occurred and the Defence Minister is, has committed to me he will be here on the first week of November and that is a definite date.

ALYSSA BETTS: So I mean can you tell us if you've extracted any firm promises from the ministers involved?

NATASHA GRIGGS: Well both of the, the Defence Minister and the Assistant Defence Minister, know I've campaigned heavily on this issue, they know that the Territory is in the middle of a housing crisis and there are these houses that are sitting there not being used and should be being used. They want to make sure that the information that the department provides us in the briefing, because when we're in Opposition we actually get limited information and the Labor Party weren't that keen on providing us all the detail that, that we required. So we now will have that information and we'll be making decisions to ensure that those houses are used and the best outcome for Territorians.

ALYSSA BETTS: So if you didn't really have access to all the information you wanted and you will now obviously be able to do that, does that mean that there's a chance that once you get all the information you'll realise you'll have to follow the same path as Labor and basically allow that suburb to be dismantled?

NATASHA GRIGGS: Well one of the things that I've been very clear about is that Eaton is a inner city suburb, so readymade suburb and those houses should be used regardless of who owns them. It's just ridiculous that in this day and age that we have vacant houses, so regardless of what the briefing is the facts remain the same and that is that we have a number of houses sitting vacant in the middle of a housing crisis. Both the Minister and the Assistant Minister know that I think that's absolutely unacceptable and Territorians think that that's unacceptable.

ALYSSA BETTS: But will it be enough to convince the Government just because you think it's unacceptable and Territorians, would that be enough to convince them to take on Defence and-

NATASHA GRIGGS: Anyone who knows me, Alyssa, knows that I'm tenacious and that I like to get things done.

ALYSSA BETTS: If Labor says it saved the houses and you're saying you're saving the houses how does your vision differ? Is it definitely still excising the land and selling them off as is, where is?

NATASHA GRIGGS: Well that was one of the things that I was very particular about is that we already have this suburb already made - let's use it, let's look at all the options.

ALYSSA BETTS: I haven't heard you say before 'let's look at all the options' that sounds like there's a change in the language somewhat. What do you mean by all the options?

NATASHA GRIGGS: Well the fact is that there are other people who are stakeholders who I may not have considered in the past, there are also other options. I mean we have a Territory government that's looking at providing housing for Territorians as well so I just want to make sure that when the decision's made that the outcome has covered all of the different options available. What I want to make sure is that the houses are used and that this suburb which we all think is fantastic should be used, it should be alive. It shouldn't be dying like it is at the moment.

ALYSSA BETTS: There's been two internal defence reviews, one in 2009 and another in 2011 which basically said that defence thought that they, they concluded that they needed the RAAF base land, the RAAF base housing land for strategic purposes so do you think defence is exaggerating or being a little bit tricky about those?

NATASHA GRIGGS: Well, different people have different views on things. The Minister and his Assistant Minister know how much this means to the people of Darwin and Palmerston and so I see that they'll be taking those concerns into consideration with any decisions that they make.